By Norwood
Jack Sparks has been posting a list of top country songs… HIS version, to counter that lame-ass countdown that the Country Music Channel is or was doing (it’s hard to tune in to that station for long enough to determine exactly what’s on.)
Shania Twain is the single most damaging thing ever to happen to Country Music. She is NOT talented, She is NOT dynamic, She is NOT important, She is NOT fun. She is a robot. She’s just a pretty face in a pink halter top and cowboy hat looking for her next check. She has dragged the music I love into the gutter of “what sells must be what is.” These people live in a fucking palace in Switzerland. Last time I checked, June Carter Cash died at home on the farm motherfucker. If you like that boyband, canned bullshit, then you were probably all broken up when Rob and Fab turned out to be fakes too. Fuck. How long, Oh Lord, how long?
Posted as Country Music
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By Norwood
The headline in the SP Times reads Does your water taste strange?, and the article is a good followup on what I wrote here yesterday (see below). Funny, but the water that Perrier is stealing from our community and bottling and selling as Zephyrhills brand doesn’t seem to have any quality problems. Why do we put up with shit (thinks about it: there is literally poop mixing with our water) in our tap water while letting a multinational behemoth steal our good stuff?
The drinking water in parts of Hillsborough County may taste a bit different soon, and there’s a good reason.
Hillsborough’s drinking water supply flunked tests for bacteria in May, but authorities didn’t deem the situation serious enough to immediately alert county residents.
The same thing happened in October. Back then, county officials launched an investigation. Now they’re taking stronger measures, increasing the amount of disinfectant in the water.
“There’s no health risk associated with the disinfectant. It just means your water may smell more like chlorine or taste different,” said Celine Hyer, engineering manager for the Hillsborough County Water Department. “It should help kill off any stray bacteria.”
Posted as Tampa
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By Norwood
Mucicipalities in Florida routinely inject toxic sludge deep underground. Unfortunately, some of this crap is mixing with fresh drinking water supplies, which is against the law.
Officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency were in Tampa on Wednesday to get public opinion about a controversial proposal to relax those rules and allow what’s called deep-well injection of sewage to continue, even if the treated effluent is mixing with drinking water.
Remember: the easiest way to fix a problem is to change the rules so that it is no longer defined as a problem. And don’t worry: a wedge of lime will nicely cover up that slight taste of turd, though you might want to strain the solids out just to be safe.
Posted as Florida
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By Norwood
From today’s News Dissector Web Log:
FCC BATTLE STILL RAGES: CALL TO PRESSURE CONGRESS Common Cause is seeking to mobilize pressure on Congress: “Last Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee responded to the call to overturn the FCC decision. It took the first step by approving Senate Bill S.1046, and added several amendments, including one addressing the consolidation of radio that, if approved and passed into law, could address the creation of a more independent and less monopolized media. You answered our cry to upend the FCC and flooded the Senate with messages and we won this first step. We’ll keep you informed as the legislation moves through the full Senate after the July 4 recess. But right now, we need your help to build momentum in the House. Please urge your Representative to listen to the American people by supporting legislation similar to S.1046. Contact your representative in the House by clicking here: http://causenet.commoncause.org/afr/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=2651106
Common cause adds: “Whatever the end result of the legislation approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, a new era has begun. More than ever, the American public is aware that a diverse and independent media is integral to a healthy democracy.”
Posted as Media
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By Norwood
Elaine Cassel writes today of a U.S. Judge who is fed up with the system:
Martin is particularly bitter about drug sentencing laws. For drug offenses, according to recent data, account for about 60 % of federal prisoners. It is the harsh punishment for drug use and addiction that has driven up our incarceration rate to over 2 million men and women. We incarcerate more people for more crimes than any other country in the world.
And the sentencing is in the hands of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, behold to Congress, beholden to the President. Politics as usual.
The last straw for Martin came earlier this year when tucked into the Amber Alert legislation was a requirement that federal judges who deviate from the sentencing guidelines must report themselves to John Ashcroft.
And heavens know where that is going; it seems as if the errant judges are to be seen as naughty children who must report to their authoritarian father and await their punishment. You can’t obey John and at the same time use common sense or demonstrate compassion and decency. For all John’s talk of Christianity, he is one mean man when it comes to the weaknesses and suffering of others.
Watch your ass. If they don’t get you for “supporting terrorists” through your recreational drug use, Ashcroft and his cronies will just find some other way. Unless you’re a white Christian (in name, not necessarily in action) Republican war mongering fascist. In that case, your probably safe, at least for a while.
Posted as Civil Liberties
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By Norwood
The State of Florida has decided to spend $750,000 on an ad campaign warning Floridians not to purchase prescription drugs from Canada. According to the SP Times:
Canadian pharmacies can sell some of the drugs most commonly used by Americans at 30 percent to 50 percent less, as a national health care plan covers its 33-million citizens and the government negotiates bulk medication prices.
So, in this country, not only do we not have a national health plan, our government is so concerned with protecting the profits of drug companies that it doesn’t even want its citizens to get a good deal on medicine?
Canada’s plan should be held up as a model for us. The only practical way for most people to be insured in the US is to be lucky enough to be employed by a company that offers insurance benefits. Health insurance is overly expensive, patients are treated badly, often you can not see the doctor you want to, and HMOs are paying their executives overly generous salaries while raping us for huge profits. Why don’t we try something different, something that is already proven to work?
As for those drug company profits, the drug companies say they have to make back the money they spend on R&D, but their R&D is so heavily subsidized by the Feds that they are, as a group, among the largest recipients of corporate welfare. The U.S. gives them money to help develop new drugs, or the U.S. simply turns years of government research over to them, thus doing the R&D for them. The companies are then allowed to patent “their” discoveries and sell the new meds for exorbitant prices. We know the prices are exorbitant, because in countries like Canada, the same drugs are much much cheaper.
If you don’t think the system is broken, ponder this: the sicker you are, and the sicker you remain, the more money your doctor makes. There is no financial incentive for a doctor to cure you. In fact, there is every incentive for a doctor to keep finding little ailments that require prescription meds (doctors are paid by drug companies to push their products) and followup visits.
Posted as Florida
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By Norwood
David Lindorf noticed, like CounterPunch has lots of great articles, updated daily.
Posted as National
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By Norwood
Paul Krugman in a NY Times piece titled Denial and Deception is coming right out and saying that Bush lied. I wonder if Paul will still have a job tomorrow morning.
There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious.
About the deception: Leaks from professional intelligence analysts, who are furious over the way their work was abused, have given us a far more complete picture of how America went to war. Thanks to reporting by my colleague Nicholas Kristof, other reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and a magisterial article by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in The New Republic, we now know that top officials, including Mr. Bush, sought to convey an impression about the Iraqi threat that was not supported by actual intelligence reports.
In particular, there was never any evidence linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda; yet administration officials repeatedly suggested the existence of a link. Supposed evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program was thoroughly debunked by the administration’s own experts; yet administration officials continued to cite that evidence and warn of Iraq’s nuclear threat.
Let’s hope that more of the mainstream press picks up on this theme. We were deceived into waging and illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. In the eyes of most of the world, we are now the terrorists. We can’t go back, but we can sure as hell work to impeach the lying smirking rich white frat boy who calls himself our president.
What You Can Do to Impeach George Bush
Posted as Fascism
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By Norwood
Here’s a wire story I found in the St. Petersburg Times News Update section. Link may not work for long, so here’s the full story:
Crist willing to intervene in ACC-Big East feud
Florida’s attorney general said today he’s prepared to intervene on behalf of the University of Miami in a lawsuit aimed at blocking the school and two other Big East members from transferring to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Attorney General Charlie Crist said Miami has the right to choose which conference it wants to play in and that he was prepared to oppose a lawsuit filed earlier this month by representatives of the Big East Conference, including the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia. The suit claims the movement of Miami and possibly Boston College and Syracuse to the ACC would effectively bankrupt the Big East. “This is a fundamental dispute among athletic conferences and universities,” Crist said. “Universities have the right to join any conference that invites them. The law does not compel Miami, or any institution, to rebuff a legitimate overture, as long as existing contractual obligations are satisfied.”
So, Crist is quick to jump to the defense of a private institutions “rights,” even as the personal civil liberties of every citizen in this country are quickly being “disappeared” by his Republican cohorts. At least he has his priorities straight.
Posted as Florida
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By Norwood
The Pentagon has decided that the country needs a little more pro-war fervor. According to The Orange County Weekly OC Weekly:
Apparently. The project even has a name: Operation Tribute to Freedom, putatively overseen by Air Force general Richard B. Myer. Check out the website at www.defendamerica.mil/otf/photos/index.html. Therein, it is claimed that Pentagon officials had been “inundated” with requests from communities asking how they could show support for the troops. Another press release remarks on the “spontaneous” displays of support for the military. And there doubtless have been many.
So why, then, does the Department of Defense deem it necessary to cold-call cities to sell them on a military salute?
“It seemed pretty obvious they were just trying to manufacture more public support for their war,” said the city official.
Rumsfeld’s minions are actually calling municipalities around the country and encouraging them to base their July 4th celebrations on a pro-war theme. Here’s a much better idea, and it’s FREE!
Posted as Fascism
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